"Home”

After what used to be a six hours of driving, our family’s red van crawled down the only road that I ever called “home”. The first step in the house was the most cherished. One could always smell the reminisces of grandma’s cooking that spoiled the air. Shortly after arriving my sister and I would always stride to the end of the dock and just sit, sometimes for hours. Just taking in everything God had to offer. We would watch the wet paint drip from the sky only to smear the perfect sunset. The white swans would peacefully glide across the bay like water ripples on a calm day. Ducks by the number would make their way over to us from the island that formed to the right of our house. Across the bay there was a beach and we would watch the little kids and their moms pack up for dinner and migrate home. I can remember the young boys throwing sand at their moms in procrastination. I remember those moments when I was little and how I treated my mother when she would have to drag me home. The beach over the years though has become my Eden Nothing could go wrong and it never did. Although the thin soft sand in my bathing-suit every now and then was reasonable reason to go home and change (but that was always about it).
Eventually seven o'clock rolled around and Jillian and I would prepare for the night. Preparation for the night” was not the same as up north. Hot water was scarce down the shore and with six people or more in a three-bedroom house, showering was limited. A simple wash down of shampoo and soap was all that was permitted. No time to shave and such. No time to sing. No nothing, just in and out. After about an hour the two of us were ready, which was pretty impressive considering all we had to do. Walking out of the house with our hair entangled in a bun, large sweatshirts covering our bodies and a cheap pair of shorts was all we really needed. No one really got dressed up dow there. People did as they please and no one tried to impress anyone (which was great!).
A few houses down from ours stood a large yellow house. My best friend David lived there. David and I had been best friends since we were babies He was that guy that I could always count on for anything. He was a tall, goofy, sophisticated kid that everyone loved. He could get any crowd laughing. Well anyways, once we got David the three of us than would go down a few more houses and pickup our other good friend Gina. Gina, well now she is tall. She stands 6’2. So she basically towers over us all. From there we would walk everywhere. Some people would think that that sucks having to walk everywhere, but down the shore that is all anyone ever did. And had we ever needed to go into Sea Side we would take a taxi, but otherwise we walked everywhere.
After picking Gina up the four of us walked to the beach. Eventually we were there and we just sat there waiting for the night to unravel. Every night something new would happen. Either we would end up walking down to the boardwalk, which was visible from where we sat. Or sometimes (and by sometimes I mean most times) we would just sit up at the tope of the beach and drink. But whatever ended up happening I can assure you it was not boring, because New Jersey was an eventful place and we were always going to live that idea.

A Free Soul

A child laugh frees
An adult’s soul trapped inside
Bound by importance


The Going and Coming Atlantic

Blue water crashes
Sweeping up on the soft sand
And going back in


A Seasonal Monster

Fast it sweeps across land
Picking up all in it’s way
She comes and she goes

June 28th

Standing still,

summoned by fear.

Dark dandy-lions stand as shadows in the sky.

And I am still alone.

Bright Milky Way star’s illuminate the sky like New York City lights.

And I am still alone.

The refreshing summer breeze sweeps my backside

And I was still alone.

Something crunches in the leaves behind me.
A slow figure coming my way.
My heart b-e-a-t-s
My hands sweat.

I am no longer alone.

First Catch

I had my brother’s old beat up board, blue boarding shorts and a few friends. The five of us stood there on the shores of New Jersey, staring out at the unpredictable. Joe to my left, his beach blonde hair flew with the wind and Jeff, with his big muscles was to the left of him. Chris and Dan both stood to my right grasping onto their black wetsuits and Sex Wax (I always loved the smell of that stuff). Like hard covered books hitting the floor, the waves came clapping down. The reminisces of summer lingered in the air as I took each breath in meditation. We then traversed through the sand, boards in hand, leashes leashed, and sprung ourselves into the mystical blue. The October water engulfed me as I tried to adapt to the rather brisk Atlantic. Struggling to get out because my duck dive (a move where one pushes the board and themselves under the water) was not yet perfected and the turtle (a move where one turns the board over with themselves underneath) wasn’t really effective. However, after being pushed back a few times I eventually made it out. I made it to the place where the boarders can sit all day, without a care in the world- a place that eventually becomes home to us “beach bums.
The sun was beating down on my salty back, creating a shiver to run form my toes to my beach blonde hair. Looking around at all the other guys with their dreads, strained chests and piercings, I felt a feeling of security; internal peace. I glanced over my other shoulder only to see the men fanning their way to shore. I cocked my head around, like an owl, and there is stood towering over me, Mother Nature herself. Stunned by the force of nature coming my way, I sprawled out on my board and made my way over what seemed to be the end of my life. Once over I only discovered another one on it’s way; I turned around, shore ahead, and began to paddle. I was ready, plant or plummet I was ready. It was gaining. I felt something hit me, and afraid that I hit someone I sprung my head backwards, only to see my friends gesticultaing to look forward. I straightened out. THen it came to me. My arms had stopped shredding the water, but I still remained in motion. I was surfing. Besides the fact that I didn’t even attempt to stand up, I was surfing!
Nearing the shore, I came to think that the old man was right, “once bit by the surfing bug you’ll never want to leave.’ I didn’t want to leave after that first ride, and come to think of it, I never did.

Running River
A brook steams down south
Running water whispers
Rolling against the rocks

WHITE OCEAN
Close in, cracking cold
Still alone the earth bubbles
A white cloud at sea

The Loudest Sound in the World

The loudest sound
is the sound
one is waiting to hear.

A sound that one is used to,
and just disappears.

A noise that one is expecting,
and than never comes.

The loudest noise in the world
Cannot be hear, but can be expected/

A sound that had died.
A noise that has left.
A sound that’s never coming back.

Alone

Ostracized, isolated, alone
She stands in number of one.
A tall beautiful girl
With no one to hug
No one to talk to.
The eyes strike her,
like a knife slicing through a pear.
She breaks down
and runs away
From everything she knows

Because not even her shadow will walk beside her.

Robert White Creeley

Bibliography:

Robert White Creeley was born in Arlington-Symmes Hospital in Arlington, Massachusetts on May 21, 1926. He was the son of Dr. Oscar Slade Creeley and nurse Genevieve Jules and a brother to one sister. When Creeley was young he lost his father and in addition to that faced difficult challenges with only having one eye, having lost the other in a car accident. Creeley was raised on a farm with his mother and sister and took on the obligations of being the man of the household. When he was fourteen he was granted a scholarship to Holderness School in Plymouth, New Hampshire. In 1943 Creeley graduated and went on to continue his education at Harvard Universty, where he made a few of his first publications in the school papers and journals. However, the young poet dropped out the following year to serve in World War One where he worked in the American Field Service driving ambulances around in Burma and India. Creeley returned home two years later and reenrolled into Harvard but instead in 1995 he took his Bachelors Degree from Black Mountain College, a school known for it’s art education and practice. After receiving his diploma he resided in Littleton, New Hampshire for a while working as a farmer on his own land. In 1951 Creeley and his wife, Ann, and their three children picked up and moved to Mallorca, an island that is associated with the Balearic Islands. Here Ann and him established Divers Press, and within three years of their business they had published over a dozen literary pieces. Throughout this time Creeley also taught at Black Mountain College and also continued to serve as a valid editor of the Black Mountain Review, as he did when he was a student. Through 1958 and 1961 the successful Creeley taught at Albuquerque Academy, an all boys school. In 1962 he went to teach at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, where he had gotten his masters in 1960. Through 1963 and 1986 Creeley traveled America teaching and lecturing at various universities such as: the University of New Mexico (1963-1065), State University of New York at Binghampton (1985, 1986), State University of New York at Buffalo (1967). Throughout Creeley’s life he had made several publications one of his biggest was in 1962 with his piece For Love: Poems 1950-1960. Some of his other works include: Poems 195-1965 (1965), Words (1967), Away (1976), Echoes (1982), Mirrors (1983), Memory Gardens (1986), The Company (1988), Later (1979) Myself (1977), About Women (1966), Hi There (1965), The Boy (1968), Mazatlan (1969), Two Poems (1964), Distance (1964), The Whip (1957) and If You (1956). In addition to Creeley’s poetry publications he also had published several essays and fictional short pieces like: The Island (1963), The Gold Diggers and Other Stories (1965), The Collected Prose (1988) and The Collected Essays of Robert Creeley (1989). In recogniztion to all of his works Creeley received many awards such as the Bullingen Prize (1999), the Lannon Lifetime Achievement Award (2001), the New York State Poet (1989) and the Robert Frost Medal (1987). two of the Guggenheim Fellowships and the Shelley Memorial Away.

Books:

Some of Robert Creeley's publications include:

[1] Le Fou (1952)
[2] The Immoral Proposition (1953)
[3] The Kind of Act (1953)
[4] The Gold Diggers (1954)
[5] The Gold Diggers and Other Stories (1965)
[6] A Snarling Garland of Xmas Verses (1954)
[7] All That is Lovely in Men (1955)
[8] If You (1956)
[9] The Whip (1957)
[10] A Form of Women (1960)
[11] For Love: Poems 1950-1960 (1962)
[12] The Island (1964)
[13] Words (1967)
[14] Poems 1950-1065 (1966)
[15] The Charm: Early and Uncollected Poems (1971)
[16] Robert Creeley Reads (1967)
[17] A Sigh (1967)
[18] Divisions and Other Early Poems (1968)
[19] The Finger (1970)
[20] 5 Numbers (1968)
[21] Pieces (1969)
[22] Mazatian (1969)
[23] In London (1970)
[24] A Quick Graph: Collected Notes and Essays (1970)
[25] 1234567890 (1971)
[26] St. Martin’s (1971)
[27] A Day Book (1972)
[28]Listen (1972)
[29] For My Mother: Genevieve Jules Creeley 8 April 1887-7 October 1972 (1973)
[30] His Idea (1973)
[31] Inside Out (1973)
[32] Thirty Things (1974)
[33] Backwards (1975)
[34] The Door (1975)
[35] Away (1976)
[36] Hello (1976)
[37] Presences: a Text for Marisol (1976)
[38] Mabel: A Story (1977)
[39] Thanks (1977)
[40] Later: A poem (1978)
[41] Later (1980)
[42] Echoes (1982)
[43] A Calendar 1984 (1983)
[44] Mirrors (1983)
[45] The Collected Prose of Robert Creeley (1988)
[46] Window (1988)
[47] The Company (1988)
[48] The Collected Essays of Robert Creeley (1988)
[49] Dreams (1989)
[50] Places (1990)
[51] Windows (1990)
[52] The Old Days (1991)
[53] Selected Poems (1991)
[54] Life and Death (1993)
[55] Loops: Ten Poems (1991)

Mood:

A Feeling of Love: A great number of Creeley’s poetry express this feeling of love. A love that is simple and pure, not complicated and unknown. Take for example two stanzas that come from Creeley’s poem “The Rain”, “Love, if you love me,\ lie next to me.\ Be for me, like rain,\ the getting out\ of the tiredness, the fatuousness, the semi-\ lust of intentional indifference.\ Be wet/ with a decent happiness” (KLEINZAHLER, New York Times). Here he speaks to his lover and tells her to be like rain, something so authentic and natural. Most of Creeley’s poems address these matters of love. his poems are very personal and are his devoted emotions to his friends and family. Critic Louis L. Martz explains Creeley’s poem The Finger” as a deep apprehension of love he goes further to say, “Here [in the poem] the finger turns out to be the mind reaching out from ‘that time [when] I was a stranger’ toward the apprehension of woman as an abstraction of all the ancient mythological qualities named Aphrodite or Athena; not a woman, then, but rather the varied presence of woman-ness” (Arbor, 241). This thought that is presented to the audience if rather big and deep but those are Creeley’s poems for you. The idea a woman is so extraordinary is presented in the poem “The Finger” in the following lines, “She was tall with\ extraordinary grace. Her face\ was al distance, her eyes\ the depth of all one had though of,\ again and again and again.”

A Feeling of Isolation and Fear: Even though Creeley’s poems discuss these feelings of adulation and passion towards particular people he still wraps his thoughts and imagery around this inkling of mere fear of isolation. One particular poem that exemplifies this notion is in his poem “Language”.


Locate I


love you some-


where in





teeth and


eyes, bite


it but



take care not


to hurt, you


want so



much so


little. Words


say everything.



I


love you


again,



then what


is emptiness


for. To

This excerpt from the poem “Language” goes far to say that Creeley’s thoughts are bound up by images and feelings of isolation and seclusion. Here knows that there is someone out there for him but he can not find her and only at this point in time he feels alone.

One other poem that does a good job demonstrating Creeley’s thoughts of alienation is in the poem “Somebody Died”. The following stanzas demonstrate a figure whose mere being is to be alone and whose passing image just appears to be nothing more but a passing person:

What Shall we know we don’t know,
that we know we know we don’t know.

The head walks
down the
street with
an umbrella.

People
were walking
by.

The image that Creeley creates in this poem is remarkable. It is such a simple creation, nothing too extravagant yet manages to convey his feelings of despair. One other poem that does a good job in doing this is “The Act of Love.” His words again are very simple. He does not elongate his ideas or his thoughts, he is very straightforward in his writings.

In

bed I yearn
for softness, turning
always to you. Don’t,

one wants to cry,
desert me! Have I
studied

all such isolation
just to
be alone?

MOVEMENTS:

Robert Creeley along with all his other fellow writers were part of the “Projective Verse Movement”. The idea in the movement was to replace the traditional poetry that was being written at the time. Charles Olson, a distinguishable American poet, labeled this type of poetry and also gave it other names such as “Open Composition” or “Composition by Field”. The idea behind Olson’s term was to allow more relaxation and freedom within writing. And his idea later became an inspiration for all following poets. However, in addition to this small movement Creeley became a influential poet in the American Poets.

SIMILAR ARTISTS:

Charles Olson, Robert Duncan, Allen Ginsbery, John Wieners, Denise Leverton, Lary Eigner and Edward Dorn.

INFLUENCE BY:

The distinguishable poet was influenced by partner Charles Olson, another American Poet who took part in the same movement. Creeley looked up to him when he was just starting and eventually formulated a bond with him and eventually had the opportunity to work with him in his writings.


FOLLOWERS:

Robert Creeley was one of the most influential poets of his time and he had a great impact on the future of poetry. He was not afraid to be different and took the chance to be and in return changed the world of poetry. his poetry shaped the minds of the group of poets in the New Critics and this included artists like F.R Leavis, William Empson, Robert Penn Warren, John Crowe Ransom, Cleathe Brooks, T.S Eliot and R.P Blackmur.

WORKS CITED


Creeley, Robert W. So There. New York City, NY: New Directions Company, 1998.
Faas, Ekbert. Robert Creeley: A Biography. Montreal , Canada: McGill Queen's UP, 2001.

http://wings.buffalo.edu/epc/authors/creeley/bib.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/24/books/review/Kleinzahler-t.html?ei=5088&en=c4d04c3bbcfe48ab&ex=1361509200&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&pagewanted=print

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Critics

http://project1.caryacademy.org/echoes/03-04/Robert_Creeley/defaultcreeley.htm

http://www.diacenter.org/prg/poetry/87_88/creeleybio.html

http://www.poltroonpress.com/creeley.html

http://www.lib.uconn.edu/online/research/speclib/ASC/findaids/Creeley/MSS19780008.html#d0e56

http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/creeley.html

http://www.lib.uconn.edu/online/research/speclib/ASC/findaids/Creeley/MSS19780008.html

Walking Out

Frozen cold
She stood there on the mat
Her jaw tightening
Her throat closing
The tears where pushing through.

She took a bow and walked away
The judges said it all
with A NINE, A SIX and A SEVEN.
Maggie was good,
but not good enough.

Certain she was not qualified,
Not talented enough to move on.
With that, Maggie walked out
Out of the gymnasium
And out on her dreams.